The 1970s co-star who could get away with treating John Wayne “like a turd”
John Wayne has long been regarded as one of the most formidable on-screen stars of the past century.
Renowned for his near-constant portrayal of the cinematic hero, Wayne carved out a distinct position off-screen as an ultra-conservative, staunch defender of so-called American values. This dual persona solidified Wayne’s reputation as one of the toughest figures in cinema history.
With an ego as impressive as his long list of credited performances, by the time he approached the 1972 movie The Cowboys, Wayne could swagger onto any set with the same confidence as any of the countless cattle ranchers, US Marshals and gunslinging heroes he had portrayed. However, for this picture, Wayne decided that a different tactic was needed.
Having spent the latter part of his career imposing himself on the set, fighting with co-stars and directors (only really scared off the set by one Marlene Dietrich) and generally operating as a figure who commanded respect one way or another, Wayne felt that this role required something different. Playing Will Andersen was fairly simple fare.
Except, in one crucial respect, it wasn’t. By the early 1970s, Wayne had spent decades cultivating an image of near-invincibility, playing men who invariably stared down danger rather than surrendered to it. Audiences knew exactly what they were getting when they bought a ticket to a John Wayne movie, which made The Cowboys a surprisingly bold departure. Beneath its familiar western trappings was a story willing to challenge assumptions about its biggest star.
Andersen is a ranch owner who is left high and dry as his drovers head for the gold rush. He attends a local school, looking for workers, but soon realises that they aren’t quite as mature as he would hope. However, a gang of boys show up at the ranch looking to volunteer, but things go awry when Asa Watts, played by Bruce Dern, begins to circle the ranch, and a dark cloud looms over the story. With Dern in the role of villain and Wayne set as a paternal hero who meets a sticky end, the veteran actor knew he had to begin the story on set while the cameras were off.
“I might have been,” noted Dern, of being intimidated by Wayne when landing on set. “But right at the start, he says to me, ‘I want you to do us a favour.’ He was including himself, [director] Mark Rydell, and the scriptwriters. He said, ‘From now on, consider me to be somebody you can publicly kick the shit out of me 24 hours a day on the set”.
“I want these little kids [playing the cowboys of the title] to be absolutely terrified of you.’”
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Few actors ever had the chance to give John Wayne such a tough ride, but Dern ran with it: “He gave me carte blanche to just treat him like a turd. So I was on him, talking back to him and stuff, for the few days I was there. And he would do things like call out: ‘Hey, Mr Dern, would you get over here?’ I thought, Hey, John Wayne gives you a ‘mister’ status. My first day, he’s calling me mister. How about that? That’s pretty cool.”
The real reason Wayne is so keen for the children on set to be afraid of Dern is that, in the picture, Dern Watts kills Wayne’s Andersen before the young cowboys avenge him in a brutal showdown. The killing of Andersen is something Dern once revealed he was still receiving hate mail for: “No question. But I knew that would happen.”
That reaction speaks volumes about Wayne’s standing with cinemagoers at the time. In an era before franchises and cinematic universes dominated popular culture, stars themselves were often the attraction, and few loomed larger than Wayne. For many viewers, seeing him gunned down felt like a breach of an unwritten agreement that the Duke would always ride away in one piece. The fact that Dern continued hearing about it years later says everything about how deeply audiences invested in that image.
John Wayne was a divisive character off-screen. However, it is hard to denounce his devotion to getting the right movie down on celluloid, even if that did mean he was treated “like a turd”.
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